Spring into Winter
by Luckywild
Summary: The sudden appearance of Mother Nature and her three 'children' alert Jack to a new threat, that of the being of Origins, Arche Apeiron who seeks to take back everything. The four Seasons must band together to stop her and return her to her true form, before the life of the Earth is snuffed out.


Rise of the Guardians

Spring into Winter

Chapter 01

The small girl stood at the edge of winter. No, seriously, she stood at the edge of the season of Winter, looking very excited. She was around five feet tall, with a pixie haircut of chocolate colored hair with forest green roots, as if the green were growing over the chocolate. Her bright gold eyes shimmered with the excitement that caused her to tremble.

She was pale-skinned, light and airy, much like a Pixie. Especially so since her name really -was- Pixie. She wore a emerald-colored jacket with the sleeves rolled up to the seams and a forest green tank top that revealed her belly button. Her 'shorts' was a tightly woven, brown skirt that had been refashioned into shorts. Her small feet were adorned in goldenrod sandals, stylized a bit like Roman's shoes but with a inch thick full heel.

And along her right arm was a forest green vine. It was her constant companion, aside from the brown staff that made a U at its top, which also had a similar companion of a forest green vine wrapped around it.

"Come on, come on.." She hopped side to side, fluttering in the air as she became impatient. "It's time to meet so.. Just show up already!"

She heard it then, his laughter and energy. He was zooming again as he came to the sudden edge of Winter and looked utterly surprised.

"Surprise!" Pixie waved her arms high in the air. "Helllloo, Jack Frost! I am the Spirit of Spring, call me Pixie! By the way, I love your work! You're sooooo cool!"

Jack stood there, becoming uncomfortable. "How…"

"I'm to bring Spring! I'm supposed to do that, you know!?" Her continuous beaming was make Jack a little nervous as he pulled back.

"I'm like your sister! Because we all protect seasons! Including, you know, Spring, Summer, and Fall.. all that jazz! Did you want to meet Mother Nature? She's the one that runs the place!"

Jack turned away quickly. "I'm…"

She grabbed him by the hoodie. "Oh, boy, let's go!"

She tugged him and then halted like a rock, his body falling to the ground. "Whoops." She took her staff and touched the signs of winter. Green began to grow and spread, bulbs of earthy life forming. "There, it'll go and start Spring. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy!"

"Lemon…" He squawked again as she dragged him up. She jumped onto a lukewarm wind and they flew away, bounding with each step.

She fell into the realm of the Mother Nature. A hidden sanctuary for herself and the other personifications of the seasons, as well as the rare mythical creatures, Mother Nature had created a loving and warm home.

"Hiiiiiii!" She shouted loudly. "I brought your son!"

"Son?! I'm not anyone's kid.. That's around anymore," Jack jerked away from Pixie, brushing at his clothes with irritation. "I don't know what you are but.."

He stopped as she appeared. Much like how the Sandman was all golden as well as squat, the Immortal of Earth was much the same. She was lime colored with dark green eyes, her 'hair' really made of a lines of vines and leaves, pulled partially into a pseudo ponytail while the rest fell around her face and against her neck. Her dress was cut at her thighs, in a slant going down toward the left of her hips. The bottom was edged in a cluster of more leaves as her strapless top was lined with a type of cape attached to the dress as well as the metal rings that crossed the front of her chest. She wore bracelets, one dangling on her left hand, the other wrapped on her right forearm, her outfit finished with ankle boots with double folded top.

Pixie was already petite, Mother Nature just looked ridiculous standing in front of the suddenly really tall Jack. He looked at her warily. "So.. are you another guardian?"

"Yes, she is!" Pixie blurted.

"You talk like the Sandman?"

"No, of course not. I have a voice."

Jack's eyes fell to the very ample chest of the Guardian. "What.. Guardian are you?"

"I am the Guardian of the Earth and subsequently, the Seasons. I've been meaning to talk to you but… well, I'm quite busy. I would've, in fact, have let you be but I'm having a sort of problem that I thought you might be able to help. After all, you've reached a new level."

"Mother… Mother, pssssst!"

Mother Nature sighed. "This is the Spirit of Spring, Pixie."

"Yea, we sort of met already."

"Did you do what you were supposed to?" Mother Nature asked Pixie pointedly.

"Absolute-mently!"

Mother Nature rolled her eyes. "She's very friendly to a point. Though I'm really surprised at how well she's taken to you. Usually strangers irk her a bit."

"Not as much as Anemone."

"Anemone is in a class of her own," Mother Nature said firmly.

"Look, what exactly did you need me for? I'm sort of busy."

"Sort of busy?" Jack jumped as the flaming yellow haired boy landed behind him. The right side of his body, predominantly his face, neck, and chest as well as bits on both arms and legs, going as far as his toes and soles, were pinked as if they had been burned. His yellow hair slowed its flames to revert back into hair as his yellow eyes gazed coolly at Jack. He was taller and buffer and dressed sort of like a surfer with a wife beater, the right top strap burnt, his orange shorts jagged at the edges.

He carried a heavy looking wooden staff, the top burnt from its natural brown into black crisp.

"We're all busy, Frost, but we've come to the Mother's aid. How about you be a good boy and listen?"

"Puck, shush," Mother Nature said sharply. "Forgive him, you two are conflicting seasons and thus, Puck," She said pointedly to the boy. "Will act as such."

She focused her gaze upon Jack. "There is a problem. There's a person going around, ruining the changes and effects of the seasons and we need to stop her at all costs."

"She's stealing more than that, she's stealing life and energy and important items, even what you can't see, like hope and dreams and love, a lot of love.." Pixie counted quickly on her fingers.

Jack rubbed his head. "Look, I know the other Guardians.."

"No, not them. They protect the children, what gives this place a future. Right now, we need to focus on the present." Mother Nature moved her arms in a slashing motion. "Besides, this is my fault."

"How is it your fault?" Puck protested. "It's because of humans that changed Arche."

"Arche?"

"That who Give and Takes, everything that has any meaning. But she had such a workload and when humanity began its evolution, and all the bad things happened, it tainted her," Pixie's gaze became sad. "She was once a powerful Guardian, even more so than the Man in the Moon for she was older. But then, she shattered herself and he took over and thus created all of the first Guardians that you know. Mother Nature is one, herself."

"Yes, and most of the Spirits of the Seasons were of my own. The Man in he Moon got to you first, though. I'm not complaining, though. He had made a very good choice."

"Thanks, I think."

"So, are you in?" Pixie gave him big, puppy eyes.

"Leave him be. It's not fair to be forced into something you didn't want to do in the first place." Came a new, bitter, feminine voice.

Her hair was long and it changed colors in a set of three. Her roots were red-brown, fading into red-orange, and then yellow at the tips. Her eyes were a deep green, her skin a darker hue, colored wheat, and her dress was for the majority, red-orange. She had ridiculously long sleeves that hid her arms completely, and her hips were hugged by a thick, brown rope where the dress then divided into four parts, two slits along the front and back of her legs and the four long bits of fabric were lined in silver. She bore red-orange fabric bound to her ankles to halfway up her calf by brown, frayed rope.

Unlike the others, she bore a silver cloak fashioned into a long shawl in the back. The hoodie was lined in autumn leaves, its center starting in brown as the leaves turned red-orange on the sides and yellow at the top of the hood.

She carried a buff-colored wooden staff, much like a Sheppard's staff with a crooked top and a curved shaft.

She stood away from the group, looking put-out. "He's got his own allies. Why must we force him to do what -you- want?" She said this to Mother Nature who calmly looked back at her. "After all, we're supposed to have choices, right?"

"Yes," Mother Nature said with difficulty.

Pixie went to the girl's side and tried to touch her shoulder.

"Get off me," She snarled at the smaller girl. "If you were you," She said to Jack. "I'd get lost. Don't get pulled into this."

"That is not your place," Mother Nature began.

"Not your place?" The girl's face twisted with anger. "How dare you? You're such a beloved thing that no one thinks you can do no wrong!"

"I'm sorry, I've been saying this forever but, I thought you were happy lately.."

"I'm never happy," She turned away. "Let Arche win. Who cares anymore?"

She jumped up and caught a near-cold wind.

"Who was that?" Jack asked finally.

"Anemone. She was the first of the Spirits to be created," Mother Nature said quietly. "I need to go check on something."

Once the older woman was gone, Pixie went to Jack's side. "Anemone was created by Mother Nature as a sort of test. She made the change of seasons and as the world was just summer at first, well, autumn would come next."

"Yea but Mother Nature wasn't smart like the Man in the Moon. She didn't wait for her to die."

"What?"

"In order to become something new, we must lose what we had been," Puck pointed out. "We were all someone before we died. But Anemone was forced into the change and Mother said it took years for her to actually die. She finally lost all of her memories of her past life but she still feels the emptiness of the loss. All she knows is her name now."

"Yea?" Jack felt he could relate to that. "What is this Arche?"

"Arche Apeiron, an idea of that what something came from was its origin. Arche is the origin of everything on this world, she came out of Chaos and became what she was to be, that of sort of a creator. Not of life, really, but of Order, Compassion, Love, Hope, Dreams, you know, all of those powers that you can't see but you can feel."

"But what happened?"

"Humanity and life then created Hate, Despair, Fear, Destruction, and these were things that she couldn't do anything about but take into herself. It warped her centre, shattering her true form and giving birth to something monstrous. She's gotten stronger very quickly because of how fast humanity has been changing over the decades."

"And how can we fight her?" Jack said skeptically. "Why not ask the Guardians for help?"

"Mother can be possessive and protective. Arche was someone she looked up to and didn't do a thing to help her. She feels responsible and as we are under her tutelage.."

"Yea, but I'm not. Look, I think if this is such a big deal, the real Guardians should do something about it."

"I'm sorry, but did you just bitch slap us?" Puck's hair became flames as he pushed Jack, standing over him aggressively. "You dare to belittle us? Who you're just like? We protect our Season, just like you do! Jack Frost, you make Winter! Just as Pixie makes Spring and I make Summer. Now, you going to insult us again?"

"I thought.. We could be brother and sister," Pixie wrung her hands. "That's how I see Anemone and Puck. Together, we make this world change and grow and continue. If we had just stopped at one season, everything would be ruined. We protect the Earth itself, not just the children or humans, but animals and plants and trees and water…"

"I get it, I get it. Is this Arche really such a dangerous thing?"

"Yes, she is," Mother Nature said softly. "Unlike the Man in the Moon who cannot leave the Moon itself and must work from afar, Arche is not bound to anything and free to go as she wills, to do as she wills. There is no one out there that can stop her but us. The Guardians protect the children, the future of children, and themselves. I protect this world, from before humans touched, before it began to evolve. I know Arche well and I know her weaknesses."

"So why not take her out yourself?"

"Because she can take what I have made. But she can't take you."

"What?" "You weren't made by me. The Man in the Moon rose you himself, you have his blessings. It is to my sadness that Arche created me and I have created my three. As such, we are linked. But she can't touch you. If my three join you in this fight, then they will be protected. We need you to help us."

"So what exactly is her weakness?"

"Somewhere, deep inside of her is what she used to be. What is still trying to be. She must be cleansed and only the power of the four of you can do so. You can overpower her, take out her evilness and restore her."

"At what costs?" Jack asked then.

Pixie and Puck both looked to Mother Nature expectantly.

"I'm not sure of that. But if you can make children believe in the Guardians, surely you can do something."

Puck and Pixie turned toward Jack. He rubbed his head. "I'll try but I'm not making any promises."

At that, Pixie threw up her hands. "Yes! This will be sooo much fun!"

"Sure, as long as he's not too big for his britches," Puck muttered, jumping away. Pixie hugged Jack with glee.

"Don't worry, he'll like you eventually! Took him forever to warm up to me!" She giggled and then patted his head. "I'm going to go talk to Anemone! Be right back!"


End file.
